Análise Social - Competitiveness and cohesion: …analisesocial.ics.ul.pt/documentos/1292287938J5dYA5vi6Xb...663 Francesca Governa* Análise Social, vol. XLV (197), 2010, 663-683

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Francesca Governa* Análise Social, vol. XLV (197), 2010, 663-683

Competitiveness and cohesion: urban governmentand governance’s strains of Italian cities**

This article discusses current limitations and opportunities in Italian urban governance.Since the 1990s Italy has been going through changes concerning its political andinstitutional system. The changes in the roles and organisation of the State and moregenerally for the public actors, recognisably affects urban governments. Italian urbanpolicies are therefore called upon to deal with the introduction of inter-institutionalforms of cooperation between various levels of government; co-ordination between amultiplicity of actors and interests; involvement of private sector institutions; and thedirect participation of citizens in the decision making processes. Much less clear iswhether and how the debate around the different dimensions of urban governance hasgained real influence — including in the governance practices of cities and in thecapacity of policies to address urban problems.

Keywords: Italy; EU policy; planning; urban regeneration policies.

Competitividade e coesão: tensões no governo e nagovernança das cidades italianasNeste artigo reflecte-se sobre as actuais limitações e oportunidades na governança urbanaem Itália. Desde a década de 90 do século XX que a Itália tem assistido a mudanças nosseus sistemas político e institucional. As mudanças no papel e na organização do Estado,e mais globalmente nos agentes públicos, afectam reconhecidamente os governosurbanos. As políticas urbanas são, portanto, campo muito relevante na introdução deformas inter-institucionais de cooperação entre vários níveis de governo; coordenaçãoentre uma multiplicidade de actores e de interesses; envolvimento de instituições dosector privado e participação directa dos cidadãos nos processos de tomada de decisão.Muito menos claro é o debate sobre as dimensões que ganharam real influência naspráticas de governança e na qualidade das políticas para enfrentar as questões urbanas.

Palavras-chave: Itália; políticas europeias; políticas de regeneração urbana.

INTRODUCTION

Changes of the organisational forms and modes of action of the Nation-State give rise to two simultaneous levels of redefinition: the redefinition ofthe national territory as a stable framework of reference and belonging and

* Dipartimento Interateneo Território, Politecnico e Università di Torino, Viale Mattioli39, 10124 Torino, Italy. e-mail: [email protected]

** Giuseppe Dematteis, Politecnico di Torino, Matteo Goldstein Bolocan and GabrielePasqui, Politecnico di Milano, read an early version of this text. I thank them with affectionand hope to be able to take due account of their just criticisms and suggestions.

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the redefinition of the role of the State as a political entity in charge ofregulation and redistribution (Cassese, 2001). According to Jessop (1994),these processes involve, at least partially, a hollowing-out of the Nation-Statewith the consequent re-articulation of powers and responsibilities towardsupra- and infra-national institutional levels (e.g. European Union and localauthorities) and toward horizontal networks of power, acting independentlyof the institutional processes of functions and competencies decentralisation.Changes of roles and functions do not occur separately from spatialchanges: the redefinition of State functions is accompanied, and simultane-ously intensified, by the re-scaling of State territoriality (Brenner, 1999,2004). Therefore, supra- and infra-national territories are called upon to playa new economic, social, symbolic, and political role, with the consequentmultiplication of spatial subdivisions and of the stages for policies and inter-ventions; a diversification of scales within which collective actions attaintheir relevance; and a proliferation of conflicts of both representation andpower (Vanier, 1999; Debarbieux and Vanier, 2002). The change in theterritorial organisation of the State thus intersects with the transformation ofits roles and of the forms of national statehood (Rhodes, 2000). The focuson these aspects overcomes a conception of the State as mere “container”of organized hierarchical power, highlighting the problem of transversal in-teraction and coordination between different levels of territorial organisationsand of the political and institutional action (Brenner, 2000).

However, albeit spatially reconfigured, Nation-State institutions do notpassively undergo such processes, but engage in them as actors in their ownright. In this sense they continue to play a key role in the political andeconomic restructuration at all geographical levels, as well as to formulate,implement, coordinate, and supervise policies. The redefinition of both theinstitutional levels and the areas in which political and institutional actionsshape themselves “has not generated a unidirectional process on a singlescale — be it European, regional, or local — is replacing the national scaleas the primary level of political and economic coordination” (Brenner, 2004,p. 3). New modes of public action thus define a shift in the meaning of therole of the State and they do not represent evidence of its decline, overcom-ing the poor and in many ways controversial dichotomous opposition be-tween government and governance. Indeed, the distinction between thesetwo models is not entirely clear, and refers to a continuum of intersectingaspects and features of both government and governance. From this per-spective, the emergence of governance “should [...] not be taken as proofof the decline of the state but rather of the state’s ability to adapt to externalchanges. Indeed [...] governance as it emerged during the 1990s could beseen as institutional responses to rapid changes in the state’s environment”(Pierre, 2000b, p. 3).

Within this framework, the article will present and discuss the charac-teristic of the Italian urban governance, from both the conceptual and the

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empirical point of view, with the aim of showing its limitations and oppor-tunities. Since the 1990s, Italy has been going through a period of intensechange concerning its political and institutional system. As in other Europeancountries more or less during the same period, the beginning of the decentrali-sation processes has led to a reshaping of the relationships between the Stateand the local governments, establishing a new framework of competences anddefining new models for the public-actor action (Cammelli, 2007). The changeof the organisation and the role of the State (and more generally of the publicactor) also affects a change of urban government, spreading the (ambiguous,problematic, and often purely rhetorical) term of urban governance (Balducci,2000; Bolocan Goldstein, 2000; Perulli, 2004; Palermo, 2009)1. Italian urbanpolicies are therefore called upon to deal with the introduction of inter-insti-tutional forms of cooperation between various levels of government; of co-ordination between a multiplicity of actors and interests; of involvement ofprivate sector institutions; and of direct participation of citizens in the decisionmaking processes. Reading urban policy documents prepared by variousItalian cities during this period reveals a clear change in the objectives andforms of the public action. Much less clear is whether, and how, the debatesurrounding the different dimensions of the urban governance has gainedreal influence even in the governance practices of cities and in the capacityof policies to address urban problems.

The article is structured as follows: after setting out all the legislative andinstitutional changes that form the framework of the existing urban policiesin Italy, we will present the main plans and programmes of urban govern-ance, to discuss then some critical nodes of the Italian experience. Thesenodes refer to the emergence of a change which is rather more said thandone, characterised by inertias against innovation, the resurfacing of oldproblems, and the difficult “balancing” between patterns of public actionseeking, at least theoretically, to “hold together” the needs for economicdevelopment and the well being of the population.

1 I accept the ambiguity and the risk of a purely rhetorical or instrumental use of theterm governance as a baseline datum (see Rhodes, 1997; Osmont, 1998; Pierre, 2000a;Governa, 2004; Governa, Janin Rivolin and Santangelo, 2009), which will then be discussedwith reference to the specific incidence of urban policies in Italy. Suffice to recall here thatoften, in more simplistic and streamlined interpretations, the term governance is used toindicate a (generic) improvement in relation to the past (in critical terms, for example, Imrieand Raco, 1999). The word governance is thus used as a panacea to solve every problem,without taking into account the many significances that are layered around the term, themany meanings with which it has been (and still is) used, the many fields of the exercise ofgovernment where governance models are used (Rhodes, 1997). This attitude also tends tofavour a prescriptive-normative conception of the term (which emphasises how we shouldact in a certain situation or, more generally, to change the style of government) rather thananalytical-descriptive (describing a particular situation or a particular government practice)(Bevir, 2002).

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THE ITALY OF THE 1990s: DECENTRALISATION PROCESS ANDINSTITUTIONAL CHANGES FOR THE URBAN GOVERNMENT

The plot of the relationships amongst the processes of political andinstitutional decentralisation, and the redefinition of the relationships betweenthe State, the local authorities, and the urban and spatial policies may beidentified by focusing on the forms and the modality of cities’ government,beginning with the identification of the modification introduced by the “new”tools of urban and spatial planning. Gathering the different aspects of inno-vation is not an easy task. Innovation is indeed often only “superficial”:frequently ending in the spreading of new slogans which conceal very tra-ditional behavioural styles concerning the operative modus of the publicadministration and of the major economic and social actors (Pasqui, 2008).Moreover, innovation does not always directly improve the state of things;facets of innovation are mixed with the preservation of “old” organisationalstructures and the inevitable inertia that lurks in the processes of design andimplementation of policies (Governa, 2004). Finally, new instruments do notalways correspond to new governance practices from public administra-tions, neither to different modes of urban action, nor to more efficient andeffective outcomes of urban issues (Palermo, 2009).

Despite these limitations, there is evidence of the path followed by thechanges that have occurred in the context of Italian urban policies. Theycorrespond to the main innovations in legislation that trigger changes inurban governance practices (Vandelli, 2000; Camelli, 2007) (Table 1).

The movements toward decentralisation and the progressive local gov-ernment reform date back to the mid-1980s, with a gradual acceleration inthe early 1990s, at a time of deep crisis in the Italian political and institutionalsystem. Measures taken gain the form of an attempt to radically change theinstitutional arrangements, reforming the systems of control and distributionof responsibilities and power between State and local authorities. The at-tempt was to simplify the administrative interventions and boost publicadministration efficiency. The principles from which these laws take inspira-tion fit in with the trend toward the progressive decentralisation of admin-istrative and political action, which concerns (at roughly the same time) allEuropean countries (Governa, Janin Rivolin and Santangelo, 2009). Suchprinciples seem to envisage, at least in general terms, the redesign of therelationship between State, local authorities, and civil society following anentirely different approach from the traditionally institutional arrangements ofthe western world, which B. Dente (1999) summarised in the formula of the“riduzione amministrativa della complessità” (administrative reduction ofcomplexity), namely of “razionalizzazione via accentramento e riduzione deiconflitti attraverso la loro sussunzione a livello superiore” (rationalisationthrough centralisation, and reduction of conflicts by their subsumption athigher level) (p. 113).

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Major national laws for the reorganisation of functions and responsibilitiesbetween State, regions, and local authorities

[TABLE 1]

Ordinamento delle autonomie locali sets the guidingprinciples for organisation of municipalities and prov-inces and also determines their functions. The law alsosets the establishment (never implemented) of metropoli-tan areas, considering such areas to include the munici-palities of Turin, Milan, Venice, Genoa, Bologna, Flor-ence, Rome, Bari, and Naples;

Direct Election of the Mayor, Provincial President andProvincial and Municipal Council (supplemented by L.April 30, 1999, No. 120);

Measures to rationalise public finances, pertaining tointerventions that involve a variety of public and privateactors and the introduction of instruments for negotia-tion between public institutions and between institutionsand private interests;

Delega al governo per il conferimento di funzioni ecompetenze alle regioni ed enti locali, per la riformadella Pubblica Amministrazione e per la semplificazioneamministrativa that, referring to the subsidiary principle,gives all the administrative functions and duties for thepromotion of the regional and local development toregions and local authorities;

Misure urgenti per lo snellimento dell’attivitàamministrativa e dei procedimenti di decisione e dicontrollo e Decree Law of May 31st 1998, No. 112:Conferimento di funzioni e compiti amministrativi delloStato alle regioni ed agli enti locali, in attuazione delcapo I della Law of March 15 1997, No. 59 (the so-called Bassanini reform, named after the Minister ofPublic Administration), which, overall, redraw the distri-bution of powers and functions between the state, regions,and local authorities, ascribing to both regional and locallevels a very wide range of functions and powers;

Disposizioni in materia di autonomia e ordinamentodegli enti locali, nonché modifiche alla Law June 8,1990, No. 142, which rationalises and modifies the gen-eral framework of L. 142/90, considering both thechanges that occurred and the implementation difficul-ties, particularly with regard to the metropolitan citiesand their delimitation. The metropolitan city, howevertermed, should incorporate those government powersattributed to provinces as already set out by the 142/90law. In fact, even this legal mechanism was never placedinto effect.

L. June 8, 1990, No. 142

L. March 25, 1993, No. 81

L. December 23, 1996, No. 662

L. March 15, 1997, No. 59

L. March 15, 1997, No. 127

L. August 3, 1999, No. 265

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This phase ended (not only symbolically) with the amendment of theItalian Republic Constitution of 1948. Such change, implemented through theConstitutional Law No. 1 of 1999 and No. 3 of 2001 and the subsequentconfirmative referendum of October 7, 2001, covers nine Constitution Ar-ticles, contained in Title V, concerning the territorial ruling of the State.Basically, the modification of Title V sought to establish the foundations andpreconditions for a future transformation of Italy into a federal republicbased on the principles of vertical subsidiarity between different levels ofgovernment and horizontal subsidiarity between public authorities and citi-zens, and on principles of legislative, administrative, and fiscal federalism.To the State are reserved essentially exclusive legislative powers only incertain fields (such as foreign policy and international relations, immigration,defence, and security), while issues of governo del territorio (territorialgovernment), of economic and production development, of scientific andtechnological research, of transport and communications, and of cultural andenvironmental valorisation are matters of legislative competence shared withthe regional level. The administrative functions, even concerning specificmatters reserved to the national level in terms of legislation, are allocatedacross the various levels of government according to an ascending criterion(often termed as “vertical subsidiarity”), which favours the local level and,in primis, the municipalities. Article 114 also details that the Italian Republicis formed of municipalities, provinces, metropolitan cities, regions, and theState. In this sense, all are autonomous entities with their own respectivestatutes, powers, and functions according to the principles fixed by theConstitution. Thus the metropolitan cities, although being an administrativelevel never implemented in Italy despite a constant recall of its necessity forroughly two decades, extend beyond the ordinary legal framework to enterdirectly into the Constitution, thereby becoming necessary and not only“possible” institutions.

The reforms that led to a progressive increase in the administrative andinstitutional competences of regions and local authorities, beginning with theadministrative decentralisation and the reform of the Constitution’s Title V,however, were not accompanied by any simultaneous process of recognitionof autonomy and financial accountability at the local level. In parallel, thetransfer of central powers and functions to municipalities and the need forthe local public administration to contain services’ costs, while still preserv-ing their quality and maintaining the essential functions of government, haveled to the introduction of new forms of local public service management. Inthis context, market forms or mixed forms of “quasi market” in the man-agement of local public services has emerged, also through the adoption ofprivate sector working methods and organisation by the public sector. Inparticular, the increase in the outsourcing of most local public services,

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firstly those related to economic and then also the one related with humanbeings, has progressively weakened the political and technical role of localauthorities. Therefore, within this context the reference to models of gov-ernance has been basically translated into the adoption of the principles ofthe minimal State (Rhodes, 2000)2. Overall, the “time lag” between thedevolution of functions, competences, and resources and the gradual “re-treat” of the role of public bodies in the delivery of public services have ledto the revival of a centre/periphery model in the relationship between theState and local authorities, which is clearly expressed in the fiscal sides ofthe federalist proposals enacted into law in May 2009. In practice, thecentral government, more than just retaining regulatory powers, the abilityto propose interventions and the determinant resources for their implemen-tation, also maintains a strong influence both on the side of revenues and realtaxation, and in terms of the spending and its relative functions. The locallevel, on the other hand, appears paradoxically undermined from both thelegal and financial perspective, and operates within the narrow channel be-tween the sharing of central powers and attempts to defend its own options.

In addition to the change in the legal and institutional framework, withall the aforementioned problems and difficulties, the construction of theframework of Italian urban governance has also been influenced by the roleplayed by the European Union (EU)3. Initiatives and community programmeshave indeed spread in the Italian practices the “core principles” and thecurrent European urban policy’s mainstream (Janin Rivolin, 2003; Gualini,2004). In particular, the 1999 ESDP (European Spatial Development Per-spective), Interreg and Urban initiatives, the regional policy and proceduresfor managing structural funds, and the Territorial agenda of May 2007 havetogether gradually changed, in different but converging manners, the Italianpublic administration mode of action. It might be enough to consider, as anexample, the “revolution” introduced in the Italian practices by the wide-spread adoption of the competitive procedure for the allocation of financialresources, with the consequential diffusion of evaluation procedures andrewarding mechanisms (Ferrero, 2004). At the same time, local authorityautonomy, subsidiarity, accountability, appropriateness of the public struc-tures to the carrying out of the responsibilities assigned to them, flexibilityin inter-institutional relationships, citizen participation in collective choices,and streamlining the bureaucracy, i.e. the key principles of EU policy ap-

2 For an interpretation of urban policies as public policies that, as such, exist and becomeenacted through a selection of political instruments, see Lascoumes and Le Galès (2004).

3 In the case of the minimal State, according to Stoker (1998, p. 18), governance isunderstood only as “the acceptable face of spending cuts”.

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proach (Janin Rivolin, 2003), became, even in Italy, the cardinal points thatstructure urban policies.

The relevance of this set of changes, beyond declarations of intent,should obviously be tested in practice in order to assess whether and howthey affected the attitudes and styles of the public administration’s govern-ment, and whether they had any practical modalities on the transformationand development of the Italian cities.

THE CHANGE IN THE PRACTICES: PROJECTS AND PROGRAMMESOF URBAN GOVERNANCE

Institutional and legislative changes “translate” into a variety of policies,plans, and interventions of different origins and natures, which have changedthe government of Italian cities, spreading forms of urban governance rap-idly, although often only superficially. Amongst the many projects and plansthat have changed and continue to change the way in which Italian cities aremanaged and governed, main examples of the characteristics assumed byItalian urban governance are the strategic plans, whose overriding goal is topromote the urban competitiveness in the global arena, and the so-calledcomplex programmes, aimed at urban regeneration. The reference to thedimensions of governance (from horizontal and vertical subsidiarity to citi-zens’ participation, from the territorialisation of policies to the changing roleof public entities, see Davoudi et al., 2009), seems particularly evident, atleast in intentions, in these two areas of urban government. However, manyof the transformations that have taken place in Italian cities in recent years,and their forms of government, are often the result of decisions, actions, andpolicies made outside of the governance framework. These include sectoralpolicies, in particular those relating to public transportation and mobility;changes in the local service management systems, with a rising hollowing-out of the political and technical role of municipalities; the implementation ofadministrative decentralisation, with the progressive increase of the powersof Regions and local authorities, accompanied by a steady reduction in thetransfer of financial resources and the continuing lack of recognition offinancial independence. These are all examples of processes which havedeeply affected Italian cities, outside of any coherent framework and withoutthere having ever been any systematic effort to interpret the impact of thevarious aspects on urban governance4.

4 According to Faludi and Janin Rivolin (2005), the specific style of policy making ofSouthern European countries is a key element in building a “Mediterranean way” to Europeanpolicies.

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Within the programmes that explicitly refer to the term of governance,the examples given by the strategic planning, as emerging from the not somany critical reflections on the Italian experience (see Perulli, 2004;Palermo, 2009), enable us to detect a specific trend of the urban governancein Italy. Italian strategic plans fit into a conception of urban governanceoutlining the city government’s ability to successfully confront the diversityand fragmentation of actors and interests that act in the decision-makingarena to promote competitiveness and economic development. The assump-tion underlying this interpretation is that the city can be interpreted andmanaged as a “collective actor” (Bagnasco and Le Galès, 1997; Le Galès,2002). Hence, the strategic plan becomes a tool that assumes and expressesthe formation of the “city’s collective actor”. The aim is to define a sharedvision of the urban future within which are manifested and integrated theinterests of a number of actors and social groups, in order to define thepositioning strategies of the city toward the market, the State, and othercities considered to be, according to the dominant rhetoric, benchmarks (seeConti, 2002).

In Italy strategic planning was established in the mid-1990s, relatively latecompared with other European countries (Barcelona, considered a “beacon”for the Italian strategic plans, began this in 1988). The first Italian city toadopt a strategic plan was Turin in 2000, with a plan subsequently revisedand updated in 2006 (Torino Internazionale, 2000 and 2006). However,Italian cities have recovered quite quickly from the slow start of strategicplanning processes. The strategic plan of Turin was quickly followed by theexperiences of La Spezia, Florence, Cagliari, Asti, Bari, Bolzano, Carbonia,Jesi, Prato, Venice, Naples, and others. Hence, the model of strategic plan-ning, thanks also to the funding set up by the Ministry of Infrastructures andTransport, spreads throughout the country, from north to south, and incities of varying sizes and with different development opportunities andissues. Many Italian cities have turned to the strategic plan as a tool toaddress problems posed by the crisis of the old industrial model and by theneed to promote the local economy and employment, especially so in thelight of the progressive decline in the redistributive capacities of the centralstate.

Obviously, it is difficult to make an overall assessment of the strategicplans of the various Italian cities, as each represents a special case. How-ever, reflecting again on the more general trends than on the individual cases,it is still possible to identify the main strengths and weaknesses that char-acterise the Italian strategic planning experience. The major factor of interestis the reference to a strategic dimension of the urban government, whichpoints to a change of Italian practices long centred on a strictly technical

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view of planning5. The strategic content of the urban government puts at theheart of the planning process the comparison with the political and socialdynamics of cities, the power relationships present within them, and thesupra-local flows and relationships in which cities are included. Meanwhile,the Italian strategic plans are often configured around a joint set of genericobjectives, as purely rhetorical statements unable to express an effectivecapacity for action, or even as documents that promote, rather than theelusive “city’s collective actor”, the development strategy expressed by thedominant urban regimes and coalitions of interest. The Italian strategic plansare therefore frequently constructed as a set of goals entirely alien to theproject of “physical” transformation of the city, thanks to the failure ofrelationship between the definition of strategies and the operative choices ofurban planning, and also to the (often) lack in the direct mobilisation ofresponsibilities by the actors involved in the project implementation. Con-versely, when strategic choices rely physically on “big urban projects”,relating to the transformation of significant sections of the urban fabric, thestrategic plans are “crushed” under the interests of ruling elites and, inparticular, under those with interests in the building and construction sec-tors, ending mainly in mere real estate operations.

The role of urban regimes and coalitions of interest that govern cities isnot, of course, a novelty. It might be sufficient to take into consideration thewide international literature on the city as a growth machine and on theurban regime (Molotch, 1976; Logan and Molotch, 1987; Stoker andMossberger, 1994; Mossberger and Stoker, 2001; Lauria, 1996; Dowding,2001; Stone, 2005). What is surprising in the Italian case is that the strategic

5 “Dopo aver esplorato modelli improbabili di governo del territorio, mediante pianiprescrittivi di notevole grado di dettaglio ed esteso orizzonte temporale (una singolaritàitaliana); dopo aver sperimentato, con decenni di ritardi ed esiti controversy, I modelli dellaprogrammazione strutturale e della progettazione integrate che dispongono di esperienzemature in altri contesti evoluti; or ail nostro paese si dedica più volentieri ai più agevoliesercizi di pianificazione strtaegica, che per definizione implicano minori responsabilità discelta e di azione” (After having explored unlikely models of governo del territorio throughprescriptive plans of a considerable degree of detail and extended time horizon (an Italiansingularity); after having experimented, with decades of delays and controversial results, thestructural models of planning and integrated programming that have interesting experiencesin other contexts; now our country is willing to spend on strategic planning exercises, which,by definition, involve minor responsibilities in choice and action) (Palermo, 2009, p. 113).According to Palermo, Italy suffered substantial delay in the testing of more effective andefficient models of urban governance. Despite the interest that potentially is possible to findin some experimentations, when the lag is being made up, and action models already testedelsewhere are spreading in Italy, the Italian tendency is to produce and reproduce the “piùbanali e meno ricche di potenzialità innovative” (most mundane and least rich in innovativepotential) (ibid, p. 113) experiences, as happens according to the same author for the currentspate of strategic plans.

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plans are often only vague attempts to assert the existence of an aggregatedimension of interests and that, even more frequently, it is difficult to per-ceive the presence of different strategic visions of urban government. Inessence, what emerges from the Italian strategic plans is the difficulty of theurban elites to fully express their interests and to make coalitions, to mobilisethe necessary resources toward urban development, and to direct strategicchoices toward a new spatial order (Mazza, 2000). Even the strategic planof Turin, for a long time listed as a “virtuous example” of the Italian strategicplans, had been more recently subject to a critical interpretation that empha-sised its rhetorical and highly ornamental dimensions (Palermo, 2009; onTurin’s coalitions of interest, and their difficulties, see Belligni, Ravazza andSalerno, 2009).

The second set of projects where it is possible to find “traces” of urbangovernance in Italy are the so called complex urban programmes, whichconstitute the “Italian way” to urban regeneration (Governa and Saccomani,2004). These programmes, which have often been implemented in accord-ance with EU Urban initiative or through projects emulating its “spirit”, havedisseminated urban governance practices based on the integration principle,inter-sectoral approach, and methodologies of participation of inhabitants.

The complex urban programmes have had a widespread deployment andhave been used as a means of intervention for urban regeneration in manyItalian cities of varying sizes and importance from both the economic andterritorial perspective. In addition to regional capitals, which have witnessedthe problems of exclusion and marginalisation typical of major cities (Milan,Turin, Rome, Naples, Palermo), experiences of urban regeneration have alsobeen implemented in small towns (Cosenza, Foggia, Livorno, Rovigo,Salerno, Savona, Syracuse) or in smaller municipalities, often located insuburban areas near large cities (Seregno and Cinisello Balsamo, near Milan,or Settimo Torinese and Venaria Reale, near Turin).

It is difficult to determine the results actually achieved by such pro-grammes because they are locally very different. However, despite the ob-vious differences, some elements characterise all Italian urban regenerationpractices (Governa and Saccomani, 2004).

The complex urban programmes have changed the way in which urbanregeneration was established in Italian cities, traditionally focused on physicalinterventions. The role of communitarian urban initiative, or the inspirationfrom its guide-principles, allowed channelling measures into relatively smallareas within cities to integrate social, environmental, and economic initiativesand to spread methods and techniques for the direct participation of citizensin decision making processes. In this sense, urban governance in Italy hasexperienced various forms of integration between sector and policies, part-nerships, building, definition of financial frameworks, as well as less bureau-cratic relations with urban planning instruments and legislation.

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There are also critical issues. In the Italian complex programmes, in-equalities and the difficulties encountered by the cities are deemed localproblems requiring local solutions. This approach is based on a specificapproach to describe and interpret the city (see, for a critical view, Amin andThrift, 2002): the city is seen and conceptualised as a defined and staticspace, somehow “impermeable” to external flows and relations. Throughforms of “local mobilisation”, interventions implemented in complex urbanprogrammes seek to promote the social mixité or to improve the built en-vironment of neighbourhoods but do not try to “fight” the supra-localsources of injustice. Hence the ratio of complex urban programmes seemsto fit perfectly with the “celebration” of the local (Governa, 2008), whichare based on, and together determined by, the a priori assumption that localactions are preferable to others, in relation to the supposed or real capabilityof the local level to develop projects and strategies that are more effective,democratic, sustainable, and right (Purcell, 2006).

The issues of integration and participation, which are those of greatpotential innovation in recent international experiences of urban regeneration(for example, Parkinson, 1998; Atkinson, 2000; Chorianopoulos, 2002;Carpenter, 2006), further define clear limits to the Italian practices of urbanregeneration. Despite the premise and attempts to integrate different activitiesand policies, in practice, interventions appear that are often focused onissues related to estate and physical regeneration of building and neighbour-hoods. The difficulties to manage the participation of the multiplicity ofactors and interests of the urban regeneration arena are also clear. Further-more, it is not only in Italy that the issue of participation is often used asa “rhetorical weapon” to include intervention methods challenged by dual,and in many ways, contradictory requirements: on one hand, the involve-ment of the “strong” actors (investors, entrepreneurs), which guarantee thefunding of initiatives; on the other hand, the participation “from below”,which supports the promotion of social cohesion and citizen empowerment(Tosi, 1994; Geddes, 2000). In fact, the most common form of participationconcerns the organised interests (public and private) and rarely draws on thediffuse involvement of the population, although it is often possible to observepublic consultations or interventions aimed at informing the public on deci-sions made. However, in the experiences of Italian regeneration, privateactors do not seem to have found sufficient reasons to generate suitableinvestments to start a virtuous cycle halting and reversing processes ofdegradation through better training and employment. On the other hand,“inclusive actions”, designed to promote widespread citizen participation indecision making process, present both difficulties and limitations (seeCamelli, 2005; Donolo, 2005; Regonini, 2005). Not only in Italy, but perhapsmore in Italy than elsewhere, participatory practices are full of “rhetoric and

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craftiness” (Paba, 2003), often referring to purely ritual forms, already stig-matised in the late 1960s by Sherry Arnstein (Davoudi et al., 2009); to“virtuous” practices only feasible when it comes to micro-decisions relatingto severely limited objectives and goals (and therefore not meeting the mostimportant interests) (Cammelli, 2005), or even to “resistence” strategiestoward projects or interventions (Paba, 2002).

ITALY’S URBAN GOVERNANCE MYTHS AND ILLUSIONS

Overall, the political institutional decentralisation process in Italy, and theinnovations it gives rise to, seems to oscillate between the two “forms ofdevolution” described by Hudson (2005). According to this author, in fact,

what is claimed to be new and qualitatively different about more recent regionaldevolution is that it encompasses the power to decide, plus resources toimplement decisions, at the regional level. Others, however, dispute this, andargue that what has been devolved to the regional level is responsibilitywithout authority, power and resources [Hudson, 2005 pp. 620-621].

In Italy, as elsewhere, the decentralisation and the redesign of the rela-tionship between the State and local authorities have not brought about agreat deal of increased power transferred to local authorities, even for theapparent discrepancies between the skills transferred and the financial oppor-tunities. Rather, they have contributed to the rethinking of the general frame-work of centre/periphery relationships, where the figure of most interest isthe introduction of forms of relational partnerships between public and pri-vate actors, as well as of coordination and inter-institutional cooperation(Bobbio, 2002). This is no a trivial result. Through legislative change, aprocess of redefining political and administrative action was induced: theintroduction of flexible regulatory instruments has consolidated, and madeformal and formalized, the interaction and the establishment of agreementsbetween a number of actors and interests, facilitating the practical adminis-tration of such relationships. The centrality assumed by local authorities ina wide range of policies (from those relating to environmental issues to theone concerning the promotion of development) allowed it to “practice” newforms of vertical subsidiarity. Moreover, the recognition of new forms ofinterest representation has led to the positive acceptance, hence not as abinding constraint but rather as a possibility, of the plurality and the articu-lation of the actors and interests involved in urban and regional transforma-tions, facilitating the opening up of the decision making arena to traditionallyexcluded actors.

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These elements can be traced down to the “discovery” of the virtues ofcooperation within a social dimension dominated by pluralism and thesubsidiarity, and of competition as the main route to allocation efficiency.Innovations introduced in the Italian context revolve therefore around two“centres of gravity” within the rhetoric of current policy making (Judge,Stoker and Wolman, 1995; Gaudin, 1999; Andersen and van Kempen, 2003;Uitermark, 2005; Cochrane, 2007): the “negotiation of policies”, associatedwith the constitution of agreements amongst central government, local au-thorities, and private interests, and the change in shape and modes of actionof public bodies, with a gradual shift from a rather decision and regulatoryrole toward a role of pilotage, of direction or of “accompaniment” of theinteractions amongst actors (Jessop, 1995; Sibeon, 2001; Kooiman, 2003).

According to Peters (2000), there is a significant difference between thetraditional steering conception of governance, in which are still presentforms of state coordination concerning the interactions between actors, andin which the State defines policy priorities and contracts between the differ-ent actors and different interests (and is therefore conceived as a “guide” tosociety and the economy), and the new modes of governance, whose dis-tinguishing feature is both the plurality of interaction and the modalities offormal and informal regulation between public and private actors. It remainsquestionable into which of the two areas the Italian practices have enteredwith the greatest frequency and to the greatest extent. The amendment ofTitle V of the Constitution presents and expresses this ambivalence. This fitsinto the process of redefining the framework of powers between the Stateand local authorities (according to a traditional steering conception of gov-ernance). However, it also introduces a significant change in the mode ofaction of public bodies in urban government (which can be understood asan attempt to implement the new modes of governance). The new Title Vin fact exceeds the traditional scope of planning, a technical work closelyrelated to the regulation of land use, which has traditionally operated urbanplanning in Italy, by introducing the reference to territorial government(governo del territorio). This change in terminology in fact conceals achange in perspective and approach to the urban problems and to the pro-cedures by which they are governed, by “breaking up”, at least in words,the Italian practice of public intervention in the government of cities of apurely regulatory nature. Although the term governo del territorio is vagueand ambiguous, “una buzzword senza tradizione, che ammette una vareitàpoco ordinate di significati, che rinvano a pratiche ancora più diversificate”(a buzzword without tradition, with a variety of meanings which refer tomore diverse practices) (Palermo, 2009, p. 43), it can be understood as an“extended field”, indicating a passage “dalla sfera della semplice regolazionedi usi e trasformazione del suolo a quello dello sviluppo insediativo e

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residenziale” (from the sphere of simple regulation of land use to the sphereof settlement and residential development) (ibid, p. 43). From this perspec-tive, the governo del territorio acts through the spatial coordination of avariety of sectorial policies (from land use to landscaping, from mobility tothe protection of ecosystems, from promotion of local development to theenhancement of cultural and environmental goods), through the cooperationand coordination between multiple actors and interests as well as betweendifferent levels of government with the definition of partnership procedures,inter-institutional coordination, and negotiated planning.

Criticism, however, is not lacking and some aspects do appear quiteparadoxical. As emphasized by Gualandi (2007, p. 551), the spatial planningsystem that is emerging in Italy since the constitutional amendment, outlinesthe move from

a “rationalist” and systematic model, in which to the hierarchy of planscorresponds a well-defined (and approved) hierarchy of interests to a modelin which, even if from a theoretical point of view, may appear almost“heretical” [...] to refer to a hierarchy of interests [...], in reality is possibleto observe [...] a phenomenon of centralisation and concrete “ascension” ofdecision-making, with the specification of a plurality of representation anddecision models, often and somewhat improvised and lacking reallegitimacy6.

In other words, the affirmation of the new keywords (subsidiarity, insti-tutional pluralism, differentiation, citizens participation etc.) is accompanied,in practice, with a centralisation of decisions which derives mainly from theneed for speed and efficiency in decision-making, whatever the outcomesthey may bring.

In the field of experimentation and practice, the picture is the same. Signsof change in the way Italian cities are governed are accompanied by persist-ent problems that continue to be ignored by the public agenda, that aretreated poorly or in an entirely ornamental fashion, or even bypassed alto-gether by proposals that leave out the problems (and opportunities) of Italiancities. These issues regard selected aspects of urban governance, for exam-ple environmental issues, in relation to energy saving in construction andbuilding management or the reorganisation of traffic and mobility; quality of

6 da un modello “razionalista” e sistematico, nel quale alla gerarchia dei Pianicorrispondeva una ben definite (e riconosciuta) gerarchia tra gli interessi ad un modello incui se da un punto di vista teorico potrebbe apparire quasi “eretico” [...] parlare di gerarchiadi interessi [...] in realtà si assiste [...] ad un fenomeno di accentramento e di concreta“ascensione” dei processi decisionali, con l’individuazione di una pluralità di sedi e modulidecisionali, spesso alquanto estemporanei e privi di effettiva legittimazione.

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life and the increase of housing issues; the “construction” of multiculturalcities and the growing social exclusion of large segments of the population,etc. There are also more general themes and issues related to the overall citygovernment framework in Italy. One problem demonstrating the greatestinertia of Italian urban governance, which is often referred to but neveracted upon, is the need to deal with the problem of metropolitan government,both from the institutional point of view (with the non-imposition of metro-politan areas or cities) and, especially, in terms of substantial actions. Theissue of how to govern cities that are increasingly extended poses problems(and opportunities) of government that obviously extend beyond the bounda-ries of municipal competences. Italian urban governance, despite the expe-rience of the strategic plans that “question” the metropolitan theme, is pri-marily a kind of local governance, which leads to the abandoning of otherpossible modes of action and other possible intervention levels. In fact, thisis a perennial problem: Italy has traditionally left out the state level in theoverall city development strategy. The creation of multilevel urban govern-ance in Italy thus leaves out an important level, that of the State. Thisweakness has effects on the repetition, even on a city’s matter, of thehistorical gap between the North and the South of the country, particularlyconcerning the experimentation of effective and innovative urban govern-ance’s actions in the cities of the South (SGI, 2008).

According to Donolo (2005), Italian urban policies have got, at leastpotentially, two types of innovation. The first type pertains to the policiesbased on interaction between public institutions and civil society, where the“coinvolgimento di risorse della società [...] [serve] non solo per la coperturadel consenso, ma anche per la formulazione e l’implementazione dellapolitica” (involvement of society’s resources [...] is there not only to attainconsensus, but also for the formulation and implementation of policies)(p. 40). The second type refers to the policies focused on the interactionbetween public institutions and private business interests, whose distinctivefeature is the “costruzione di partnership fra attori portatori di interessi”(creation of partnerships between stakeholders) (p. 40). In the first case, theinnovation lies in the possibility of producing public goods through socialpractices. In the second, “l’innovazione maggiore [...] non sta nell’elementonegoziale, ma nei contesti regolativi in cui deve avvenire la contrattazione”(the major innovation [...] is not the feature of negotiation, but the regulatorycontext in which bargaining must take place) (ibid, p. 44) (that is: thepresence of a regulatory framework imposing constraints, methods, andevaluations). This distinction is reflected in those practices through whichItalian cities are alternately (and uncritically) considered engines of economicgrowth, innovation centres, and key actors to promote and strengthen inter-national competitiveness, but also to allowing the development of several

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forms of self-organisation, which constitute, in reality, assistive devices tocounter the shortcomings of the market (Jessop, 2002). Therefore, someschizophrenia emerges between an interpretation of cities as “centres ofcompetition”, on the one hand, and as “laboratories for new forms of socialcohesion”, on the other hand. These two interpretations of Italian citiescorrespond to the definition of policies separately aimed at economic devel-opment or at social well-being.

Furthermore, over the last fifteen years, the pair competitiveness/cohe-sion has dominated the public agenda of urban policy not only in Italy(Fainstein, 2001; Boddy and Parkinson, 2004; Buck et al., 2005; Ache et al.,2008). Without actually considering the meanings of these two concepts, inthe international debate and, more importantly, in the Italian practices, thetwo terms are considered either simply in opposition or linked by a depend-ency relationship: cohesion is namely seen as a precondition for achievingcompetitiveness. In Italian cities, the theme (and the rhetoric) of competi-tiveness has been interwoven with the processes of structural transformationand growth of urban economies, with the growing importance of the hy-pothesis that cities function as “collective actors” acting in a competitivecontext to obtain scarce resources (events, investments), with the real proc-esses of physical and social changes, also related to the revitalisation ofurban and real estate markets. Vice versa, the theme of social cohesion hasbeen deployed in relation to the crises of the traditional modes of urbanwelfare, to the privatisation processes, and the outsourcing of public serv-ices, to the ongoing impacts of the two large urban demographic phenomenaof the last decade (ageing and increasing immigration, legal and otherwise),to the new prominence of the housing problem and the emergence of secu-rity concerns. If, as highlighted by Fainstein (2001), the almost causalemphasis on the “instrumental” relationship between competition and cohe-sion leads one to forget the value of cohesion in itself and is a rhetorical trickof a new liberal mould, recognition of the limits of a purely instrumentalconception of the relationship between entrepreneurial characterisation of thecity and social justice is becoming increasingly clear (Harvey, 2008).

Overall, the change in Italian urban policies is reflected more in intentionthan in outcomes. The persistence of problems and the difficulties to enactchanges in practices are two factors that characterise urban governance inItaly. Inertia, inefficiency, and lack of attention to the problems of the city arecombined with the progressive “output stage” of cities as agents of publicdebate (cultural, social, and political), except in terms of warnings (such asthe urban safety related to non-EU immigration, which has gained widespreadcoverage in Italian newspapers) and/or major events (such as media cam-paigns related to the Winter Olympics in Turin in 2006 or to the next Expoin Milan). The final outcome of this intense period that appeared to point to

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